Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

James Patterson’s Alex Cross will go down as one of the immortal detectives of his time. His longevity in the world of fiction has been assured not least because of the number of novels and stories that have his name impacted upon the front cover, but because of who he is as a man created by a writer of instinct, one of high morals, of loyalty and integrity bound up in soul who never seems to know what it means to quit.

Whilst other detectives have flaws, defects, blemishes that make their character edgier than those who operate on a daily basis within the confines of the law, Alex Cross does not seem to have the imperfections that give the reader a warped sense of security in a world that sees the grey area as a playable part of the game.

It is that straight bat play that gives the reader the assuredness of the Washington D.C. F.B.I. agent, that they would have him on their side rather than say even the great minds of detective fiction, more so than Holmes, Marlowe, Spade, or even perhaps Dupin, and only in terms of decency can the poetry writing detective, Adam Dalgleish, can hope to match.

That is the dichotomy of Alex Cross Must Die, for in that decency, the detectives mind is pushed to an extreme by three cases he and his long term partner and best friend John Sampson are embroiled in a case that seems to take on the effect of the Hydra-like snake, solving a significant part of the puzzle and yet finding another riddle to resolve the heinous crime of blowing a passenger plane out of the Washington sky.

The interest of utilising Alex Cross’ former detective wife as part of the investigation ties in well with the books that have come before, and the larger picture to which they both have become entangled in.

This though gives the reader a challenge, for it seems as though that Alex Cross Must Die goes through the motions of true detective work, the lack of flaw that brings the reader to identify with the hero/the protagonist, simply no longer resonates in a time which is teetering on the edge of chaos and anarchy. A good man is hard to find so the saying insists, but sometimes a good man gets in the way, and that decency, that truth of being human, cannot exist without damage being inflicted upon the moral high ground.

A good story nonetheless, but one that catches the reader in two minds, escapism certainly, but with none of the peril in the mind of the main actor, no sense of breakage that comes with a narrative akin to those detectives who see the grey as an opportunity to deliver a righteous blow against the evils in the world.

Ian D. Hall